Fatima Payman (WA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Last month, I described the political collapse of negotiations and the quiet death of the nature-positive reform as emblematic of this government's Blairite, Third Way fence sitting on the environment, and I stand by it. That failure didn't please anyone—not industry, not conservationists and not communities—because the truth is that the current EPBC Act isn't working for everyone. In fact, it's working for no-one. It fails to provide real protection for our environment and it offers little certainty for industry. Instead of addressing that failure, this government has decided to double down with a bill, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025, that makes it painfully clear whose side it's on—and it sure isn't the environment's.

The so-called reconsiderations bill will shut down the reconsideration process currently underway into salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour. It effectively pulls the plug on efforts to protect the critically endangered maugean skate. More broadly, it risks silencing communities across the country by restricting their ability to seek reviews when environmental threats emerge. Let's be clear; this is not a small procedural tweak. This is a calculated rollback of public oversight, one that could leave entire ecosystems unprotected if species that were once considered secure become threatened over time. It removes the power of the Minister for the Environment and Water to intervene when the facts change, because, apparently, for this government, evidence based decision-making is too inconvenient.

These changes didn't arise from some sweeping public mandate or scientific consensus; they were driven by an ongoing conflict between the business interests of salmon-farming giants in Macquarie Harbour and the survival of a species found only in those waters. On the very same day that this bill was announced, 20 March, Huon Aquaculture, a Tasmanian salmon-farming company, had its RSPCA animal welfare certification revoked. You may be asking why. It was because employees were caught on camera sealing live salmon in crates alongside dead ones. These are supposedly the good guys in the story.

This bill is a direct intervention in an active reconsideration process about the risk salmon farming poses to the maugean skate, and let's not pretend this is just the environment minister's doing. The Prime Minister himself, who seems to have quietly assumed the role of de facto environment minister after sidelining Minister Plibersek, has once again overridden sound judgement with political opportunism. And it's not just me saying this. Let me remind the chamber of what Senator Grogan said just last month when the coalition tried to pull the same stunt. She called the reconsideration mechanism 'an important safeguard in our environmental decision-making'. She then continued, saying:

Limiting reconsideration requests beyond three years and limiting who can make them is highly problematic. You're turning it into an entirely political situation, as opposed as a scientific, factual one …

That was just one month ago. Would Senator Grogan repeat those words now? Would any Labor senator repeat those words? I highly doubt it.

This isn't an isolated case. We're watching a disturbing pattern emerge. Labor continues to endorse coalition policy, not out of conviction but out of fear of losing political advantage. We saw it with the passage of the mandatory sentencing laws—legislation that flew in the face of Labor's own platform. We saw it again with the migration bills—so callous, so dehumanising that even the coalition's shadow immigration minister remarked that they were 'basically running the immigration system from opposition'. At what point will the Labor government's paper-thin principles give way to real moral clarity? Or is that possible only if they're dragged to it, kicking and screaming, by the political necessity of a minority government, which now looks increasingly likely to be the result of the upcoming May election?

This chamber could be doing real work. We could be passing the free-TAFE bill. We could be legislating the long-overdue 20 per cent cut to HECS-HELP debt. We could be fixing the EPBC Act in a way that protects the environment for the generations to come. Instead, here we are debating a bill that actively undermines those goals. And the timing is no coincidence. With the budget freshly phlebotomised and the public's attention elsewhere, this bill has been quietly ushered in, slipped through while no-one is watching.

This bill is not just a threat to the maugean skate. It is a threat to biodiversity, habitats and our already fragile ecosystems across Australia. It is the wrong decision, and it will go down as yet another black mark on the Albanese government's environmental record—a record marked by hesitation, capitulation and political cowardice.